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How to Write an Essay: 10 Easy Steps Learning how to write an essay doesnt have toWhy is writing an essay so involve so much trial and error.frustrating?Learning how to write an essay can be a maddening,exasperating process, but it doesnt have to be. If youknow the steps and understand what to do, writingcan be easy and even fun.This site, "How To Write an Essay: 10 Easy Steps,"offers a ten-step process that teaches students how towrite an essay. Links to the writing steps are found onthe left, and additional writing resources are locatedacross the top.Brief Overview of the 10 Essay Writing StepsBelow are brief summaries of each of the ten steps to writing an essay. Select the links for more info onany particular step, or use the blue navigation bar on the left to proceed through the writing steps. HowTo Write an Essay can be viewed sequentially, as if going through ten sequential steps in an essaywriting process, or can be explored by individual topic.1. Research: Begin the essay writing process by researching your topic, making yourself an expert.Utilize the internet, the academic databases, and the library. Take notes and immerse yourself in thewords of great thinkers.

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2. Analysis: Now that you have a good knowledge base, start analyzing the arguments of the essaysyoure reading. Clearly define the claims, write out the reasons, the evidence. Look for weaknesses oflogic, and also strengths. Learning how to write an essay begins by learning how to analyze essayswritten by others.3. Brainstorming: Your essay will require insight ofyour own, genuine essay-writing brilliance. Askyourself a dozen questions and answer them.Meditate with a pen in your hand. Take walks andthink and think until you come up with originalinsights to write about.4. Thesis: Pick your best idea and pin it down in aclear assertion that you can write your entire essayaround. Your thesis is your main point, summed upin a concise sentence that lets the reader know whereyoure going, and why. Its practically impossible towrite a good essay without a clear thesis.5. Outline: Sketch out your essay before straightway writing it out. Use one-line sentences to describeparagraphs, and bullet points to describe what each paragraph will contain. Play with the essays order.Map out the structure of your argument, and make sure each paragraph is unified.6. Introduction: Now sit down and write the essay. The introduction should grab the readers attention,set up the issue, and lead in to your thesis. Your intro is merely a buildup of the issue, a stage ofbringing your reader into the essays argument.(Note: The title and first paragraph are probably the most important elements in your essay. This is anessay-writing point that doesnt always sink in within the context of the classroom. In the firstparagraph you either hook the readers interest or lose it. Of course your teacher, whos getting paid toteach you how to write an essay, will read the essay youve written regardless, but in the real world,readers make up their minds about whether or not to read your essay by glancing at the title alone.)7. Paragraphs: Each individual paragraph should be focused on a single idea that supports your thesis.Begin paragraphs with topic sentences, support assertions with evidence, and expound your ideas in theclearest, most sensible way you can. Speak to your reader as if he or she were sitting in front of you. Inother words, instead of writing the essay, try talking the essay.8. Conclusion: Gracefully exit your essay by making a quick wrap-up sentence, and then end on somememorable thought, perhaps a quotation, or an interesting twist of logic, or some call to action. Is theresomething you want the reader to walk away and do? Let him or her know exactly what.9. MLA Style: Format your essay according to the correct guidelines for citation. All borrowed ideasand quotations should be correctly cited in the body of your text, followed up with a Works Cited(references) page listing the details of your sources.10. Language: Youre not done writing your essay until youve polished your language by correcting thegrammar, making sentences flow, incoporating rhythm, emphasis, adjusting the formality, giving it alevel-headed tone, and making other intuitive edits. Proofread until it reads just how you want it tosound. Writing an essay can be tedious, but you dont want to bungle the hours of conceptual workyouve put into writing your essay by leaving a few slippy misppallings and pourly wordedd phrazies..Youre done. Great job.